For the 150 years from 1819 to 1969, it was federal policy to have Indian children forcibly abducted by government agents. The children were taken away from their homelands to Indian Boarding Schools, sometimes hundreds of miles away. Many were beaten, starved, or otherwise abused when they spoke their native languages.
To begin addressing these injustices, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has introduced the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act.
What the Indian Boarding School Legislation Would Do
The primary action of the bill is to create a formal commission. Its mission would be to investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s Indian Boarding School Policies. This includes attempts to terminate Native cultures, religions, and languages; assimilation practices; and human rights violations.
The bill also authorizes the commission to make recommendations to Congress. These could include how to help American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people heal from the historical and intergenerational trauma. The commission would also provide a forum for victims to speak about personal experiences tied to these human rights abuses.
“The Indian Boarding School Policies are a stain on America’s history, and it’s long overdue that the federal government reckon with its legacy of causing unimaginable suffering and trauma for survivors, victims, and the thousands of Native families who remain impacted,” Senator Warren said in a statement.
“This is why I’m reintroducing legislation to establish a Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies that would investigate the federal government’s shameful actions to abolish the cultures, religions, and languages of Native communities and respond to the intergenerational trauma impacting tribal communities today.”
True Purpose of Indian Boarding School Policies
The true purpose of the federal government’s policies from 1819 through 1969 was “cultural erasure” according to the first Federal Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, published by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The federal government carried out these Policies to strip American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) children of their Indigenous identities, beliefs, and languages. The Policies removed AI/AN children as young as 5 years old from their Tribal lands and families. Then they boarded the children in schools across 30 different states.
These policies caused human rights abuses. There was spiritual, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and violence, and traumas that are now intergenerational. Further enduring impacts are the lack of culturally inclusive and affirming curricula, and historically inaccurate representation of native people.
Legislation Supported by Wide Coalition
Senator Warren originally introduced the Indian Boarding School legislation in 2020 with then-Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D-N.M.). She reintroduced it again in 2021 with the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Native American Caucus, Congresswoman Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) and Congressman Tom Cole (R-Okla.).This session, 26 other senators have signed on to co-sponsor the legislation. The co-sponsoring senators include the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
Organizations from across the country also support the Indian Boarding School bill, including the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS), National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), National Indian Education Association (NIEA), National Indian Health Board (NIHB), National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH), National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA), American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC), Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB), Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FNCL), and United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund (USET SPF).
Learn More
A one-page bill summary is here.
The text of the Indian Boarding School bill is here.
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